Kieran Trippier says “behind the scenes” issues caused him to leave Tottenham

It’s not often that English players go abroad to play their football, but Kieran Trippier is doing just that.

Trippier moved to Atletico Madrid earlier this month for a transfer fee reported to be around £20-25 million. The former Spurs right back has been off on a tour of the US with his new team, but has recently spoken to shed some light on his Tottenham departure.

According to Trippier, he left the club because of “behind the scenes” issues. Sky Sports has the quotes:

“I think it was time for me to change and move on,” Trippier said. “I don’t necessarily mean that I needed to move on, but things happened behind the scenes at Tottenham, which I don’t really want to go into, but I needed to move on from that.”

It’s unclear what these “things” are that happened behind the scenes, but they really don’t seem too serious. It’s doubtful that Trippier is trying to make some grand statement about a failing culture at Spurs. What’s more likely, is that Trippier is just talking about being benched.

Trippier was a hot commodity last summer following an impressive showing for England at the World Cup in Russia. After that tournament, Spurs fans, and possibly staff, were expecting him to really tick-on and keep that form going into the new season. That didn’t happen.

Instead, Trippier struggled heavily at times last year. It wasn’t like he was terrible in every game, but his lows were very low. Everyone remembers him passing the ball into his own net against Chelsea when he failed to look back to see if Hugo Lloris was ready for the back-pass.

Mauricio Pochettino isn’t blind. It doesn’t appear he ever had any serious issue with Trippier personally, but he probably just told him that he wasn’t going to be the starter at Spurs going forward, which is fair.

These comments are minor, and surely Trippier will realize eventually that his sale was just a part of the business of the game. There’s really no reason for a salty divorce following his time at Spurs.